Venom: Justice
by Matthew C. Kayser
Summary: Whatever happened to Beck, Eddie's girl from San Francisco? A prequel to a Spider-Girl short story I wrote called "Sins of the Fathers." Please note that I wrote this story something like 10 years ago, so it's not an accurate representation of my current work. -Matt


Please note that I wrote this story something like 10 years ago, so it's not an accurate representation of my current work.

-Matt

"**JUSTICE"**

I promised her as she lay dying. I promised her. It all started when I received a note from Gregory, one of the vagrants living in the Underground City. Rebecca Underwood was in the hospital. Beck... was going to die. After my Anne left me, Beck was the only woman who ever truly loved me. Our partnership became friendship, and our friendship became romance. In a lot of ways, that's why I left San Francisco.

...

They lay in bed together, simply enjoying each others presence. The scent. The warmth. Everything involved with newfound love. He couldn't believe that she loved him. It made him so happy, and yet, it also broke his heart, knowing what he would have to do.

"I'm glad that you came to San Francisco, Eddie. That we met. That we've accomplished so much good for these people. I'm glad that you have the power to do that good. And I love you." She moved closer to him, holding him in her arms. She couldn't see his face and wondered what he was thinking.

"I am too, Beck, but..."

"But what, darling?"

He sat up in the bed and looked at her, taking in the beauty of her form; her long raven hair, her soft breasts. His heart was beating so fast that he was lucky that his Other, his alien symbiote, began to regulate it and slow it down as a natural reaction. "I'm too dangerous to stay. You're in danger being with me."

"Don't be an idiot. I'm safer with you than I would be with anyone on Earth." She pulled the sheet over her and sat up herself. "Is this because of what happened? Because of us?"

"No. I've been thinking about it for a while now. You have a good system set up with the Underground City. I think that they'll be fine without my protection at this point."

She looked into his eyes. "You set up the system for patrols, Eddie. You set up the system for getting food, drink, everything. Hell, you built or repaired half of the homes in that place. I just rode on your coat tails."

"I disagree, but regardless, they no longer need me."

"What about me, Eddie? I need you. I never intended for this to be some kind of one night stand."

"Me, neither, but when I feel emotions like this," he paused, "it's hard for me to control them. The alien and I become possessive. You've seen it before."

She remembered. It was after they first met. The symbiote frightened her then, it's need for her. It happened again later when Eddie, no, "Venom" almost killed that Mace man, just because Eddie thought that he'd threatened her. "That was years ago, and you've gained such control over those impulses. You're making excuses."

"Perhaps. Maybe I'm trying to convince myself as well. But I love you too much to stay. I couldn't live with myself if I ever hurt you. I'm," he paused again, pain entering his voice, "I'm sick, Beck. You know I am. As much as you may think so, you'll never be safe around me." He stood up then, the alien making its presence known, sliding over his naked form, becoming boots, pants, and finally a black t-shirt. He walked towards the door of her room. "I'm sorry."

He could see the tears fill her eyes. Not "see" them, actually, not with his eyes. The alien told him. "Then go! Get out of here if you want to be such a f***ing idiot!"

...

And with those words, I was gone. It was a long time before I'd allow myself to even think of her. Oh, Beck. You were right. What had I done? It was years before I saw her again. Before I broke her heart for the second time.

...

He used the Other to disguise himself as an orderly and get the number of her hospital room. Gregory was sitting outside it in a plastic and metal chair. The man saw him staring at the room, frozen in place. He couldn't go in. Not yet. "Eddie? Is that you, man?" The man stared intently at him. "It is you! I see you got a haircut."

Eddie dismissed his joke. This was no time for joking. "Hello, Gregory. How is she?"

"Not well, Ed. Cox and his men really did her good. Bruises, broken ribs. That's not the real problem, though." Gregory choked up. "He shot her, Eddie. Right in the head. She's lucky she's still alive, but..."

"But what?" He stared at the man sitting in front of him. He'd lost weight. And he looked older. As older as Eddie looked to him, he supposed.

"They don't really know why she's still breath'n. She should be dead. But I know why. She told me she was waiting for you. That's why I had to contact you."

" I need to see her."

"I guess you should. I'll still be sit'n here when you're done. Then we'll talk."

Walking into that room was the hardest thing he'd ever done. If he hadn't left, he'd have been able to protect her, to save her. If he hadn't left, she wouldn't be here.

"Gregory?" The voice that came from her throat was raspy, tired.

"No. Gregory's outside."

"Oh my god... Eddie? Is it really you?"

"Yes, it's me, Beck." He walked to the side of her bed. Her raven hair that he remembered so well now was gone, shaved in a failed attempt to remove the bullet from her brain. Her head was bandaged, hiding the beauty of her perfect features.

"God. I didn't think you'd really come."

"Of course I would. I never should have left."

"A little late for that." The bitterness was back in her voice for a moment, but it quickly faded. "Oh, Eddie, my love. I have to tell you something very important."

"Yes. Who did this? Look what they've done to you." His eyes welled up with tears as he sat next to her on the small bed. "I have to punish them for what they've done to you."

"Never mind that. That's not what I meant." She coughed, violently. After a moment, she regained her composure and took his hand in hers. "I don't have much longer, Eddie. I just needed to see you so badly."

"What, Beck? What is it?"

"I love you, Eddie. I'm sorry I never told you about this before, about Victoria..." the coughing began again, each convulsion driving the bullet further into her gray matter.

"Who? What is it? Beck? Beck!?" Her room lit up like a Christmas tree from the emergency lights of her equipment. "NO!" As she flat-lined, the alien flowed out of control, he became Venom and then Eddie, then back again. "I promise I'll kill whoever did this to you, Beck! Gregory mentioned a name! I'll find him and then I'll kill him!" He forced himself to take on the appearance of Eddie Brock once more, and kissed her lifeless lips. He had to talk to Gregory.

...

I didn't attend the funeral. I couldn't. I was still a fugitive, after all. I could only watch from a distance, from the shadows. Gregory gave me the name. David Cox. He was a business man with loose ties to organized crime. Beck had been investigating Cox due to his disregard for both the environment, and the poor that he was driving out of their homes in an effort to redevelop an area of San Francisco. The details weren't important to me. He had killed Beck for interfering. For putting pressure on him and almost exposing his true evil to the public. He killed her because she was a threat to profit, to the almighty dollar, and to his deception. Gregory's sentiments echoed my own... our own. "Get him, Eddie!" He'd told me, "you get the bastard that did this! Beck was important to you, I know! But she was important to all of us! Get that sonuvabitch and make him pay!"

...

It was night. Eddie stood at the massive iron gate that led into Cox's residence. It wasn't hard to find. He was a _respectable_ businessman, after all. Nothing to hide. Of course not. He never expected any ramifications from Beck's death. She was practically a nobody to him, and he was above the law, like all of the other rich men in this country. Or so he thought.

"Hey, buddy, you need to keep moving," the guard announced to him in not too civil a tone. There were two guards at the gate, one at each side. The alien that he knew as his Other covered his right hand, and he crushed the locking mechanism on the gate and pushed it aside. Both guards flanked him, guns drawn and aimed at his head, which now became covered with the alien, like his hand and the rest of his body. He was Venom now. "I said go, freak! You can't be here!"

Venom lashed out a tendril to the guard at his left, the one who hadn't spoken, knocking the gun from his hand. A shot of webbing to the man's face resulted in a dance for air that was almost comical before he eventually collapsed and stopped moving. In time with his first attack, he snatched the gun from the guard on his right, using the tendril to pull the man toward him. He grabbed the man's head with both hands, squeezing hard until he heard the satisfying crunch that he was looking for. "We go where we please."

He encountered a few more guards on his way towards the giant house. They met similar fates. He didn't toy with them. He just ended their pathetic existence and moved on. He would save his energy for David Cox. With him, he would certainly get creative.

Eddie had seen a picture of the man in a newspaper that Gregory had shown him. He was older than Eddie, perhaps in his mid-forties, with brown hair grayed at the temples and sparse on top. He knew who to look for. As he entered the residence, there was a surprising stillness. No guards inside, perhaps? Venom saw pictures on the wall of Cox, a woman, and a young boy, not seven years old. _A family man_, he thought. _Too bad, but we will have no regrets_. He stalked the halls, his Other "looking" around the corners, under the doors. Looking for his prey. Instead, he found the boy.

He ran out of his room, not asleep, as Eddie had hoped. When he saw Venom, he screamed. "A monster! What are you doing here?!" The boy demanded.

"You have nothing to fear from me, child. I'm here for someone else. I suggest that you leave." The boy ran as fast as his legs could carry him.

One of Venom's tendrils had found Cox in bed with his wife, reading a book. They sat bolt upright when they heard their son. The door was straight ahead. Venom destroyed it, ripping it out of the wall with a roar. The woman screamed. Cox jumped out of bed, grabbing a gun from his end table. He fired six times. Four of them hit, only to be rejected by his Other and spat out. Cox's wife screamed again. "Leave, woman!" Venom shouted at her. "This is between me and the slime you call a husband! Your son is safe. I suggest you go find him." She walked toward the hole where the door had been, tentatively at first, then hurriedly when she realized that he truly meant her no harm.

"Who are you?!" Cox shouted. "What do you want from me?!"

"The same answer applies to both questions. We are your death, and that is what we want from you." It took only one small leap to tackle Cox to the ground, his gun cast aside, empty. "You killed Beck Underwood!"

"That bitch liberal?! She was nothing! She..." his words were choked off by Venom's hands around his throat.

"So you admit your sin?" He relaxed his grip.

"Yes! Jesus, don't kill me, I give up! Arrest me, put me away, just don't kill me, please!"

"Do we look like a police officer?" His grip stayed loose enough to hear the screams as tendrils shredded at Cox. His left had clutched the top of Cox's head, and pushed down. He pushed until the head wasn't a head anymore, just a smear of red and black mess on the carpet. Not as creative as he'd planned, but satisfying.

...

The memory snaps me back to the present. I'm not Venom, anymore. Venom is gone. Now it's just me, Eddie Brock. Alone with my sins. I'm surrounded by lawyers and reporters and television cameras. They've made the trial a circus.

"Mr. Brock?"

I hear my name and stand up.

"Mr Brock, you have been accused of the murder of one David Cox, and nine men that were working for him on the night of the attack. These are very serious charges, and not the first to be brought against you. As you are well aware, your past trials have been hampered by your alien symbiote, your 'Other,' as you call it and the ensuing debate of whether or not you were truly responsible for your actions. Due to your separation from the alien, you stand before us not as 'Venom,' but as Edward Allen Brock. As such, you have perhaps the only chance you've had to speak on your own behalf in public and I'd like to give it to you. What is your response to these accusations?"

My Beck is gone now, like my poor Annie. And my need to destroy Spider-Man has long since died. My mind fills with questions: What do I have now? What's to live for? What will become of Eddie Brock, the man? What do I deserve? When I find the answer, I realize that the trial won't be as interesting to the public, but I don't care. "Guilty, your honor, of all charges."

"Eddie, what are you doing?" My lawyer asks. "We didn't discuss this."

"It's my decision."

He looks me in the eyes and sees that I have nothing to live for. He's a good man defending a bad one. "All right," he says.

"Very well, Mr. Brock. I sentence you to ten life sentences until a date can be set for your execution. Court is adjourned."

And so it all ends.

...

New York, two months later. An eight year-old girl plays with a rubber spider making it climb up and down the shower stall as she stands in the water. "The itsy-bitsy spider crawled up the water spout! Down came the rain and washed the spider out! Out came the sun and dried up all the rain!"

"Victoria, try not to to make so much noise, Auntie's on the phone!" The voice came from downstairs.

"Sorry, Auntie Sara!" she yelled and continued the song quieter, in a whisper, "And the itsy-bitsy spider crawled up the spout again."

END


End file.
